Hello Jay,
Please print and distribute this witticism amongst your friends, but only in
its entirety. After a sleepless night, I got up at Midnight with a resolution to my
problems... After 60 e-mails to one person alone I realized that no matter
what I say, the experts on the
BOG site must know better, because an
intelligent person like yourself listens to their engineering expertise
instead of ours on matters like weight concerns, electrical engineering and
such... They must have the experience of outfitting 500 to 1000
Bushtrackers in the field and seeing and living with the results. So, we
need to put them to work for us...
Forget the problems we have had with off frequency and voltage variations
and voltage spikes out on the far reaches of SWR (single wire return) that
all the Outback stations run on, that are not dampened by the huge size of
the main grid of city systems but are subject to spikes from lightening and
equipment starting and stopping on shared dead end transmission lines....
This is a real condition and why we developed the transformer based dinosaur
engineering that is immune.. However, it is possible that the modern R & D
in the Chinese switchmode gear has adapted to account for this, so we will
see with your 2004 experiment...
.. Please resolve these other real experiences and engineering problems in
relation to your latest electrical design:
1) Switchmode is most vulnerable in one direction of mounting... Most
say they can be mounted in any direction, but due to the size of the
electrical components on the I.C. board, in reality there is a weakest
direction to be avoided, and a strongest direction that is preferable. This
accounted for between 30% and 50% of the failures on the corrugation.
Please indicate which these are, as in side mount only left facing forward
or what ever...
2) Switchmode failures had recommendations by the Manufacturers after
numerous failures of some kind of vibration dampening method of mounting.
Please include directions on this...
3) Switchmode chargers have had a nasty habit of getting stuck on full
boost cycle for prolonged periods of time, overheating or overcharging
batteries, because they only read the surface voltage on the plates as other
equipment was running that bled the voltage off of a fully charged battery.
They would get stuck on full boost cycle while the fridge was running at
full capacity in the evenings, being opened and closed spilling the cold
out, and lights and showers were on, the boost cycle that was almost
finished stayed on for 4 to 6 hours too long as the surface voltage was bled
off... This exposes the possibility of overcharged batteries or overheated
batteries, and resulted in other problems. Please insure that your
electrical engineering allows for a maximum time left in boost cycle, so as
not to impact battery life.. As that is the final resolution that we
included in our dinosaur transformer based engineering.
4) Switchmode in your design, is over the limit with maximum amperage
for these size batteries, that requires a temperature probe on the batteries
to regulate the charge as heat degradation of the batteries occurs on any
application of more than 50 amps. That is why we only build the chargers to
50 amps. Please insure that this temperature probe system is in place in
your design and engineering, to all batteries, because it is not always the
lead battery on the positive side that heats up, it is often one of the
center batteries as they are not all perfectly alike..
5) Please insure that the electrical components are screwed into the
integrated circuit board, as the highly competitive Chinese switchmode gear
has been prone in recent years to only solder the components onto the boards
to save costs.. Very good in yachts and aircraft where the ride is soft,
but faulty and prone to nuisance intermittent faults shaking on the
corrugation and microscopic cracks in the soldered joints... Also, the older
style switch mode had even the smaller components pushed through the IC
board and soldered, where newer ones to cut costs of production are only
surface soldered on the IC board...
We trust that you will account for all of these engineering problems in your
new electronic designs and please give us your data on how these new
electrical engineering systems will react with all other electrical
components in the van with relation to potential feedback and
compatibility...
And by the way, we have also moved over 80% of our inverters to the new 1200
watt transformer based inverters, for all the reasons quoted above. And it
is interest to note that the failure rate is nearly zero. The 1800 watt
inverter is unique in that it has a very good reliability factor, and the
luxury of larger capacity and a remote digital readout and control
faceplate, but we isolate it from outside influence and it is unique in that
it is fully electronic but has a very low failure rate as well, thus we
continue to use it...
Kind Regards, from those always trying to do the very best job possible, at
Bushtracker I HAVE SENT THIS EMAIL IN A FAX TO CHRIS MCCLELLAN AT XANTREX WITH THE FOLLOWING NOTE: Chris, set forth below is an email from Steve Gibbs, Owner/Director of
Bushtracker. Clearly Steve is quite concerned about my decision to install TrueCharge40 battery chargers, otherwise he would not have taken the to write this analytical email. It is this type of concern coupled with the fact that BTi builds the most over-engineered off-road caravan in Australia (perhaps anywhere) that keeps Boggers recommending BTs to others, and extremely happy with their purchase. The fact that there are friendly disagreements between BTi and some of the Boggers some of the time in no way detracts from the fact that BTs are the best available.
As one of our members constantly writes:
“Explore this Great Land ...Do it Easy ...Tow a
Bushtracker”
The issues raised by Steve require answering for me as a potential customer of Xantrex (I have tentatively ordered two 40 amp chargers) and for other members of the Group who might, depending upon the results of this debate between switchmode chargers and transformer chargers become customers of Xantrex.
Most of us are caught between two “experts” and are trying to decide the best route to go for our application.
On the one hand there are many Boggers that are using the transformer chargers installed in the past by BTi quite happily; on the other hand there are those like myself that want to take a more sophisticated approach to battery charging and perhaps obtain a better result (longer battery life due to proper charging/float charging).
I would greatly appreciate your response to the issues raised by Steve. I would appreciate it if you would put your responses in writing and post them on the site (you are a member), send a copy to Steve at BTi, and send copy to my email address (jay@tgintl.com.au) as I will be in New Zealand for the next two weeks.
I have asked BTi to put my battery charger purchase “on hold” pending your responses which will provide all of us with needed information.
Thank you in advance for your cooperation.
Jay D. Gould
Member,
BOG